June 28, 2010

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The FBI has arrested 10 alleged “deep cover” Russian agents in New York, New Jersey, Arlington, Va., and Boston after a multiyear investigation of Russian intelligence activities in the United States, the Justice Department announced Monday. An 11th defendant charged in the case remains at large.

The 11 were charged in two criminal complaints with acting as unregistered agents of a foreign government within the United States. Nine were also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. The charges were filed in the Southern District of New York.

“The targets of the FBI’s investigation include covert SVR [Russian intelligence service] agents who assume false identities and who are living in the United States under long-term, ‘deep cover’ identities,” the complaint states.

“The FBI’s investigation has revealed that a network of ‘illegals’" -- Russian secret agents who work to hide all connections between themselves and Russia and use cover identities -- "is now living and operating in the United States in the service of one primary, long-term goal: to become sufficiently ‘Americanized’ such that they can gather information about the United States for Russia, and can successfully recruit sources who are in, or able to infiltrate, United States-policymaking circles.”

The FBI said it had intercepted and decrypted a 2009 message from “Moscow Center” --Russian intelligence headquarters -- which read, in part: “You were sent to the USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house, etc. – all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e. to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reporters] to C[enter.]”

The complaint said the defendants used private wireless networks, radio-sent Morse code and text embedded in innocuous looking websites and pictures to clandestinely communicate with Russian intelligence.

Defendant Anna Chapman, arrested in Manhattan Sunday, was described in the FBI complaint as heading to a Manhattan coffee shop on several Wednesdays when an unnamed Russian government official with the Russian mission to the United Nations would drive close by in his minivan so that they could exchange electronic messages from their laptops via an "ad hoc network" covertly. Chapman also went to a bookshop while the Russian government official was outside nearby so they could trade messages covertly.

The defendants known as “Richard Murphy” and “Cynthia Murphy” were arrested Sunday by FBI agents at their suburban Montclair, N.J. home. Murphy's birth certificate, which says he was born in Philadelphia, turns out to be phoney, the complaint says.

Pelaez, a U.S. citizen born in Peru who works as a journalist for Spanish language El Diario, and her husband, using the alias “Juan Lazaro,” were arrested Sunday at their Yonkers residence.

The defendants known as “Michael Zottoli” and “Patricia Mills” were arrested Sunday at their residence in Arlington, Va and previously resided in Seattle, WA. A neighbor in their Arlington high rise told Washington's WTOP that the couple, with young children, spoke with Russian accents.

Another Washington, D.C.-area defendant Mikhail Semenko, who went by his own name, was arrested Sunday at his residence in Arlington.

In addition, two defendants who use the names “Donald Howard Heathfield” and “Tracey Lee Ann Foley” were arrested at their Cambridge, Mass. home Sunday and appeared in federal court in Boston Monday.

Heathfield, who claims to be a Canadian-born naturalized American citizen, has a real Canadian-looking birth certificate that uses the name of a Canadian who is dead (as is the Canadian man's son, who has the same name), the complaint says.

Photographic negatives of Foley in her 20s in the couple's Cambridge safe deposit box excise the name of the company that produced the film -- except one. "On one negative, the name of the film company is visible. The name on the film is 'TACMA,' ... the Soviet film company," the complaint says.

Heathfield was a student at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Cambridge local news site says. (He reportedly earned his masters of public administration in 2000 -- my class, but I didn't know him.) He is CEO of Future Map, based at his and Foley's Trowbridge Street, Cambridge home, the Boston Channel and Associated Press report.

One defendant, who uses the alias “Christopher R. Metsos,” and who also claims to be a Canadian citizen, remains at large, the complaint says.

"Deponent prays that a warrant be issued for the arrests of Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko," the FBI special agent involved in investigating their case, Amit Kachhia-Patel, concluded the complaint.

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How can this be? Obama just shared burgers fries with Medvedev and didn't have to publicly give him anything other than the catsup. Of course he has already given them just about everything else to get that photo op.

You mean they weren't here to interview for a position in the Obama White House?? Didn't Obama at least offer to take them out for cheeseburgers?? I'm sure they will drop the charges just as they did against the Black Panthers at the voting booth. Dark, underground Russian agents seems to fit right in with this White House. I'm just surprised their trying to hide themselves when every other commie dirt bag has a front row seat these days!!

Some of the Obama-bashing comments here truly defy all logic: Supposedly the FBI has known about the agents for 8-9 years - that is, throughout most of the Bush years - and they are now being charged under Obama. How does that indicate some sort of affinity between the president and the alleged spies?

Let's have the cold war back. Let's tap everybodies phone. Oh, Iforgot, GWB andDC are gone. But congress isn't and they still have the patriot act. They are all liberals and do nothing to fight our real enemies. where is the big one in Afghanistan. I wonder how many charm school graduates we have in Russia. I am sure we will find out soon. Neither the Big O nor Medvedev is a marxist. Sounds like Fox liberal news is writing comments. At least the Big O can think, GWB just laughed at the body bags.

The post-Cold War improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow seems to have facilitated the setting up of a spy rings because of the large number of Russians immigrating to the USA. The Russian SVR describes itself as a "modern special service employing talented, ambitious people devoted to the Motherland and their military duty". It is believed that they have embedded a few hundred spies in various areas of Western/Eastern Europe, the United States, Central, and South America. So now along with the growing problem of Russian organized crime, and massive fraud in our welfare system, we now have embedded spy rings living in the wealthy suburbs of America. These allegations prove that despite the warming relations of the post-cold war period the SVR has continued to build up an extensive ring of spies throughout the world in the first decade of the 21st Century.

Nobody cares about this, because nobody cares about "America" anymore. All the freaking Hispanics care about is La Raza, and getting more of their people into this country to grow their power. All the Africans care about is beating up on "whitey" and demanding more money and benefits. And all the whites care about is, getting as far away from blacks and Hispanics as they can get. Great situation for the Chinese and Russians to eat our lunch.

To date the Russian spies have learned:
- The U.S. actually has a lot of nukes
- It is very hot in Arizona
- The American government has three branches
- Liberace actually IS dead!
- Medvedev likes ketchup
- You can actually rent a post hole digger

To all the people posting comments about "so what we have U.S spies in other coutries too" or "America is so corrupt" etc. Yeah no $#!T we have spies so we can watch those countries, but unlike these guys we dont have spies in ally countries trying to infiltrate the government and its policymakers except when it is a HOSTILE country. Maybe you people should stop trashing America and be a little more patriotic! Im not serving in the armed forces so jerkoffs like you can complain about whats wrong with this country meanwhile you do nothing to cause change, and if you dislike this country and the government so much go live somewhere else like the middle east and get stoned or have your head cut off for looking at someone elses woman, or Russia and be forced to live off of rations because you dont have the freedom to start your own buisness without shelling out 65% of your profit to the government, or how about Korea, oh yeah that might work out for you just fine if you dont mind hating life in general. before you go to bed tonight ask yourself without America what the hell would you be doing!?